


The Dangers of Mixing Mulled Wine and Shirley Temple Movies

by rhysiana



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 20:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12919260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysiana/pseuds/rhysiana
Summary: The problem with being geniuses is sometimes you find yourself bored in Beacon Hills before all your other friends get back from college for the holidays, at least if you're Stiles and Lydia. And if you're bored geniuses, you might find yourself taste-testing a little too much mulled wine and deciding to break into Derek Hale's apartment to decorate it for Christmas based on an idea you got from a Shirley Temple movie. And then, if you're Stiles, you might find yourself abandoned by your co-conspirator in the middle of all that Christmas cheer with a bow stuck to your head. Being a genius is hard.





	The Dangers of Mixing Mulled Wine and Shirley Temple Movies

The problem, you see… the problem was both Stiles and Lydia were geniuses. Lydia a little more than Stiles, sure, he had no problem admitting that, but the _point_ was that they’d both had so many AP credits coming into college that they’d placed out of pretty much all the boring large-scale required lecture courses… which also happened to be the ones that tended to have the in-class final exams. Instead, they’d both ended up with a bunch of final papers that had to be turned in by email. They’d been on Skype while Stiles was finishing up a bibliography and complaining about the APA style guide at great length, when he’d hit save, flipped over to the excessively color-coded spreadsheet he’d made to manage his need to switch between subjects every 30 minutes or so, and realized all the boxes were filled in.

“I… finished everything. I’m done.” He looked up at the video window to find Lydia nodding at him like it was expected. “No,” he insisted, gesturing hard enough to fling the pen he’d been chewing on across the room, “you don’t understand! I’m done _early_. I’m never done early.”

“I know,” she said, still infuriatingly calm. “You shared your spreadsheet with me. And now…” He heard her hit a few keys on her own laptop. “…I’m done, too.”

He narrowed his eyes at the screen. “Did you cast some sort of productivity spell on me?” There was no way this was natural.

She sniffed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Please. I’m a banshee, not a witch.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hey, Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s just go home.”

“Yeah, okay.”

***

Which was how they found themselves back in Beacon Hills several days ahead of any of their other friends. Lydia had called Stiles over to her house that afternoon for the very important purpose of helping her find the perfect mulled wine recipe.

Being geniuses, that didn’t take very long. Now they were tipsy and sinking ever deeper into the overstuffed cushions of the rec room couch while watching Lydia’s favorite childhood Christmas movie, the Shirley Temple version of _The Little Princess_. At first they’d been distracted by analyzing all the weird classist and colonialist implications of the time period, but now they were fuzzy and sleepy and getting a little weepy over the rich neighbor guy sneaking in and decorating the girl’s cold servant garret room in the middle of the night so she’d wake up to Christmas.

“Someone should do that for Derek,” Stiles mumbled, face half buried in a pillow.

Lydia rolled her head to the side to look at him. “Hmmm?”

“Derek. He’s a Little Princess. Prince. All alone in that cold apartment.”

“I’m pretty sure his new building has heat.”

Stiles struggled to push himself more upright. “You know what I mean!” He stared at the screen, watching Shirley Temple exclaim in wonder. “What do you think Hale Christmases were like? You know, before. Do you think Derek has even done Christmas since he came back to Beacon Hills?”

Lydia was now blinking away tears and looking annoyed about it. “You made me sad. Why did you make me sad?”

“Sorry.”

Lydia kicked off her blanket and fished around the edge of the couch for her shoes. “Come on, get up. We have to go.”

“Go where?”

“To get Derek Christmas stuff.”

He blinked up at her. “Can you drive?”

She just tossed an annoyed “Yes” back over her shoulder as she made her way up the basement stairs, and since she was doing it effortlessly in heels Stiles was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to even stand still in, he elected to believe her.

***

Shopping with Lydia was always an experience. Shopping with an emotional-and-annoyed-about-it Lydia who also had her father’s credit card for the holidays because he was taking his new wife to France was a whole new level. Stiles wasn’t even drunk anymore, he was just being sucked along in the wake of Lydia’s consumer vortex.

“You’re sure he’s not home?”

“No, he’s consulting with my dad at the station.”

“Good,” Lydia said, emerging from the back seat with five bags of decorations. “Go pick his lock.”

As if Stiles didn’t have extra keys to the homes of all his friends at this point. Lydia had so little faith in him, honestly. Of course, all she said when he opened the door for her with a flourish was, “Good, now you can go get the tree off the car.”

He did as he was told.

Derek’s new apartment was definitely a step up from his previous accommodations, being, for one thing, in an actually inhabited building. It was even actually kind of stylish, in an industrial chic kind of way. But the finished concrete floors and counters, brick walls, and exposed metal I-beams in the ceiling meant Stiles hadn’t been totally wrong when he characterized it as cold. Especially since Derek’s approach to interior design could only be referred to as minimalist if one was being charitable.

What the apartment did have, though, was an enclosed gas fireplace controlled by a light switch. Lydia regarded it with satisfaction.

“Yes. Good. That will do nicely as the focal point for the room.”

By the time they were done, she’d had Stiles move every single piece of furniture in Derek’s living room… and it looked amazing. The Christmas tree was set up next to the fireplace, liberally covered in lights and what Stiles considered overly color-coordinated ornaments, though Lydia had allowed him to add a set of silver wolves as well. The couch had been repositioned to face the fireplace and tree, flanked by two side chairs that had been dragged in from the bedrooms where they’d been doing very little good, and a set of three richly colored area rugs were layered artfully across the floor (Stiles blamed that entirely on the influence of the movie). The previously bare couch now sported no less than five throw pillows, as well as a throw made of some kind of ridiculously opulent furry fleece that Stiles wanted to wrap himself in forever.

He sat down on the couch to admire their handiwork for just a moment… and woke up two hours later under the blanket, feeling bleary and vaguely like something festive had died in his mouth.

He sat up, blinking. “Lydia?”

No answer.

He looked around the room again, now lit entirely by the fireplace, the Christmas tree, and some flickering electric candles along the mantle and in an arrangement on the coffee table. He noticed Lydia had apparently carried on adding some more finishing touches after he fell asleep: fake evergreen and cranberry garlands adorned the windows, golden Christmas tree sculptures ran down the center of the dining table, and a light-up wicker reindeer that Stiles definitely did _not_ remember buying now stood in the corner.

He stumbled his way to the bathroom to scrounge for one of the extra toothbrushes he knew Derek kept in the medicine cabinet and then splashed some water on his face as he contemplated the best way to get home, since Lydia had apparently callously _abandoned_ him here. He scowled when he looked back at the mirror and noticed the shiny gold bow she’d stuck to the top of his head.

“Very funny,” he muttered at his reflection just as he heard the door open.

It didn’t shut again.

Stiles stuck his head out of the bathroom to see Derek frozen in the doorway, eyes wide as he took everything in.

“Um,” Stiles said, coming out into the hall. “Welcome home?”

Derek’s shoulders immediately relaxed and he let the door swing shut behind him. “What did you do?” he said, and then snorted in amusement as his gaze seemed to get stuck on Stiles’ head.

Stiles flushed and reached up to belatedly yank the bow off, wincing as a few strands of hair came with it. Trust Lydia to have gotten the kind with quality adhesive. Bluster. That was what was needed here. “Broke into your house to bring you Christmas, what’s it look like?”

Derek’s only response to that was to blink and look back at the living room again, lips parting in soft surprise as he walked closer to take it all in.

Stiles rolled his eyes when he noticed that red-and-green plaid thermos Lydia had left on the breakfast bar next to a set of Christmas mugs. Was there any detail she had left undone? Stiles barely stopped himself from darting back down the hall to see if she’d put flannel sheets on Derek’s bed. He vaguely remembered commenting on a set patterned in wintry trees with animal tracks tracing paths in the snow. Instead, he poured two mugs of Lydia’s mulled wine and crossed the room to hand one to Derek where he now stood in front of the fireplace.

“But… why?” Derek asked, accepting the mug.

Stiles looked away, flushing again. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “It seemed like a good idea at the time?” he offered, not wanting to explain the reasoning behind the line he’d drawn from Shirley Temple to Derek Hale. “It’s clearly dangerous to let the two of us get bored.” He slanted a look over at Derek. “Sorry.”

Derek smiled down into his mug. “I don’t mind.”

Stiles looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s… nice.”

“Nice? _Nice?!_ It’s more than nice; come feel this blanket!” Stiles exclaimed, grabbing Derek’s hand to tow him over to the couch, but Derek tugged him back before he took more than two steps and kissed him.

“Thank you,” Derek said softly, close enough that the words still ghosted over Stiles’ lips.

Stiles swallowed in surprise, and then licked his lips, the faint traces of spices confirming for him that had really just happened. Slowly, he reached out to take Derek’s mug back and leaned down to put them both on the coffee table. Then he stood again, never taking his eyes off Derek. “I watched Lydia make that, so I’m pretty sure there wasn’t any wolfsbane involved, but just in case, I’m gonna need you to do that again.”

Derek reached up to run his thumbs along Stiles cheekbones. “I can do that.”

***

As it turned out, Lydia had gotten the flannel sheets after all.


End file.
